


As long as I'm with you my love (I'll be alright)

by Sweven



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Gen, Mentions of KotOR II, Not Canon Compliant, Seduction to the Dark Side, phase three, roguerobin018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 23:05:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10931895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweven/pseuds/Sweven
Summary: For Callista, choosing the Dark Side was less like a Fall and more like a slow descent.





	As long as I'm with you my love (I'll be alright)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Wish Came True](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10222370) by [TwentyoneTwelve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwentyoneTwelve/pseuds/TwentyoneTwelve). 



> Alright, full disclosure, I haven't read any books with Callista in what... 12 years or something so I hope the inaccuracies aren't too distracting.

Callista followed Luke to Yavin 4. Where else would she go? The Jedi Order as she’d known them were gone, her friends were either long dead or scattered across the Galaxy with lives of their own. What remained for her now was this golden man and his new Order. She carried her losses with her, the battles she’d fought would never be forgotten, but she relished this new opportunity.

 

She considered telling Luke that she couldn’t touch the Force. That where her heart should be, there was instead a gaping chasm, that the universe was too silent, too empty without an anchor. Callista wanted to tell him about how the vastness of space was too enormous without the Force to guide her, the silence was frightening beyond belief, that she was so happy that he was there with her so that she didn’t have to face it alone, but she didn’t.

Instead she told him how strange this flesh and blood body felt, how strange it was to not exist only in currents of energy flowing through circuit-boards. She tried, once, twice, three times, but her words wouldn’t flow fast enough for her body to follow. Her thoughts felt alien and what came out was a jumble of nonsense, of half-spoken truths and inaccuracies as she stumbled over words. She silenced herself when she noticed the strange looks he was giving her. Later, maybe. When her words would cooperate, she would tell him everything, she promised herself.

 

From the beginning, moving in this body was strange. It wasn’t hers, wasn’t her body as she remembered it from oh-so-many years ago. This wasn’t the body she’d fought with during the Clone Wars, nor was it the body she’d violently shoved her mind into, a body of metal and wires and bright light and inhuman sensations. She felt detached from the chipped, lacquered nails at the end of a stranger’s hands, hands which moved when she willed them to. She felt estranged from her body and from this new reality, but she refused to give up. All that she had been through… She would endure this as well. The Force had given her another chance and she wouldn’t dare to waste it.

 

On Yavin 4 she witnessed what Luke had built, and she smiled softly to herself. The Masters of the old Jedi Council on Coruscant would have spoken of heresy, of forbidden attachments and how the Dark Side would find its way into the cracks in the foundation of this Order. They would have been outraged at the assumptions of this young upstart who had never even held the title of Padawan, who’d been trained when he was already an adult, who’d been defiant and prone to anger.

Callista was reminded painfully of Geith and his disdain for the Jedi Order and their multitude of rules. Her lover would have enjoyed this New Order immensely, Luke with his new ideas and willingness to question nonsensical rules holding the title of Grand Master would be unorthodox enough for Geith to feel comfortable with.

Her own Master Altis would have liked it as well. He'd never cared for the prim and proper ways of the Council. Callista agreed. Luke was doing a good thing here.

When she told Luke of how the Masters of old would have reacted, his face fell and Callista could feel his disappointment. Callista hadn't meant to cause him pain, she thought her tone of voice had been joking and light. Even joking was different in this body, she thought, frustrated with the situation. They fell for a reason, she said to him. Follow your instinct, don’t try to remake what they wrought.

 

Callista spoke to Luke about Anakin, after she finally dared ask about their connection. The revelation of his Fall made pieces of a larger puzzle fall into place. She’d known of Darth Vader of course, of the half-man who had appeared as suddenly as the Empire, who had scourged countless planets in the name of the Emperor, and murdered and enslaved millions. He had been feared like few others and Callista had always made sure to avoid him.

Callista told Luke of the fiery Togruta Padawan she’d met, and how the Padawan had looked at the brash Jedi General as if he’d hung the stars. She hadn't known them well and it had been ages ago but Luke hung onto her every word.

A smile ghosted her lips as she remembered their discussions of attachment. Callista wondered how Ahsoka had reacted if Anakin had ever told her of Padmé, if the Padawan had ever been tempted herself. Ahsoka had been very young when they’d met and she hadn’t grown up in a kind world. Callista hoped that the young Jedi had been able to find solace despite it all.

Callista talked of the Clone Wars. To Luke they were ancient history, for Callista it felt like the Clone Wars was both a lifetime ago and happened just yesterday. The atrocities she’d seen were still seared onto the inside of her eyelids, but spending thirty years in a memory core had allowed her time to grieve and distance herself.

Thinking back was strange. How linear the years in her first human body had been, how devoid of blinding, pulsating energy, thrumming through the hull. How inaccurate memories were, how fragmented her human life had been, she thought, compared to the unlimited data she’d been able to store in the gunnery ship. Still, Luke listened to her words as she described the Jedi and their arguments in bits and pieces, the quips flying back and forth between Master and Padawan during battle, and Callista assured him that Anakin had been kind and just once. Luke didn’t seem surprised, and Callista longed to have that much faith in someone again.

The conversation reminded her of how she had been once. Strong and willful and kindhearted. She’d used her grasp on the Force for good, always _always_ striving to make a difference in the darkness that had spread over the Galaxy. Remembering was good, she thought. She needed to hold on to this. The conversation left Callista feeling lighter than she’d been in a long time, an emptiness, a peace of sorts, had spread through her chest and she ached with it. She had never felt more devoid of the Force but she needed to embrace the loss, she thought to herself, she needed to embrace her future as it was given to her instead of longing for something that was no longer hers.

 

She still struggled with this earthly body sometimes. When her mind failed to produce the solution to a complex problem, or when the limitations of only having two eyes were proven again and again, when she tried drawing on the information in databanks she no longer had access to, whenever she failed at something she’d previously done without a thought, Callista felt inadequate and despaired quietly in her chambers. Meditation was no help, it only served to remind her that she'd lost two vastly different infinities, two ways of being connected to a larger whole. The bile rose in her throat at the thought of all that had been taken from her, of the injustices of the universe. The Force was asking too much this time.

 

The Great Jedi Library had been demolished by Palpatine himself. Callista felt her blood boil when she thought of the Sith Lord who had cheated them all. She’d seen him on the HoloNet back in the days of the Old Republic, when he’d been the bright light of hope they all thought they needed. She'd been a part of the Eye of Palpatine, a ship built to meet the Emperor’s needs as nothing else, a vessel of death and destruction that encapsulated the essence of the Emperor completely. She’d never met the man, but she despised him with every fibre of her being though she tried not to. Hatred wasn’t the Jedi way.

But… In her weak moments, in the few moments where she indulged her emotions, when she allowed herself to despise Palpatine without restraint, Callista could feel the Force again, she could see the immensity of the Galaxy unfolding around her, could sense the plants growing and the animals in the jungle, and - for a brief moment - she felt whole again.

Callista always turned away from the temptation that promised more, more, _more_ if she’d only give in, but every time she severed her connection to the Force again, she felt like she’d been blinded.

The Library had been destroyed, but Palpatine had kept a few pieces of their sacred history to himself, and in the ruins of this once-great databank of all Jedi knowledge, Callista found a sister. A Jedi who had been exiled eons ago, someone who had known the pain of not being able to feel the Force, someone who had experienced the bright togetherness of space through the Force and had had it ripped from her.

The holocrons only held fragments of her story, a few clips of a blonde human woman speaking with great sadness and a spark of anger in her eyes. She spoke of world-shattering events, of judgemental Jedi, and the emptiness that followed. Callista ached with sympathy and grief for the loneliness the woman had endured. The rest of the transmissions were corrupted and Callista’s sympathy turned to surging anger at the injustices she and the Exile had both suffered.

 

Envy. When she first realised what the emotion in the pit of her stomach was, she was overseeing a group of younglings lifting rocks with the Force. They called her Jedi Ming and the words tasted like a lie. Some of the children struggled but a few completed the task as easily as taking a breath of air.

The young Twi’lek standing closest to her was effortlessly controlling the three stones hovering in front of her. The child looked at Callista with pure joy and happiness painted on her face, her small blue lekku’s twitching softly with joy, and Calista felt her heart breaking. She remembered that feeling, remembered feeling the Force around her, flowing like water, silky smooth waves and playful eddies forming around her, and she suddenly hated the young girl for feeling the currents of the Force when Callista couldn't.

Envy turned her eyes cold and curled her lips into a sneer, and the young Twi’lek turned away, confusion and hurt written on her face as the three rocks fell lifelessly to the ground. Callista was shocked by herself. She'd never thought of herself as cruel or unjust, but now… She knew, logically, that the child was not to blame, that her emotions had nothing to do with the class of Force Sensitives and their abilities, but the more she tried to extinguish the burning envy in her gut, the brighter it burned. She felt the Force around her, shining as as brightly as a flame in dark caverns by the shores on Chad. Callista felt the Force flowing as the envy rolled around in her stomach and wrapped itself around her spinal chord and lodged itself there. She felt it and she revelled in it. It was then she realised that there was no going back.

 

* * *

 

In the end she couldn’t lie to Luke about her connection to the Force. Callista tried for days, months, years, constantly struggling to keep her feelings hidden from the Jedi Grand Master, but in the end his earnest blue eyes and his hunger for all things good and just made her break. She saw his disappointment when he realised the truth of her words and his horror when he realised what it entailed. He wanted to fix her, to keep the Dark Side at bay. He offered solution after solution, desperate for her salvation but Callista shook her head and kissed his brow.

 

She loved him, this beautiful man with wisps of golden hair framing his face like a halo. She loved him, and she knew that she had to leave him. Luke would never understand the path she would choose, the path she'd already chosen. He would never condone it. In another life she would have denied the darkness as completely as he did, she’d swear it off, forever and always, but in this one…  the lines between dark and light were too blurred for her, the pain of her loss was too much, and the constant reminders of what she’d lost caused too much grief. The Dark Side was crawling under her skin, constantly beckoning her, constantly, _ceaselessly_ itching, and she didn't know how to stop it. More than that, she didn't truly want to.

 

In the end she left this jungle planet that she'd called home for a short second in her long life. Callista didn't feel that she'd ever truly been here, not wholly. She had been broken apart too many times to feel at home anywhere. She left to put herself back together, she told Luke, maybe she could find an alternative to the stark black and white she knew. She needed to find a new balance. It was only a half lie.

It didn't matter in the end if she didn't succeed in finding her way back to the light side of the Force, Callista thought as she faced the darkness of empty space. As long as she could feel the Force, she would do whatever it took. It had ripped her apart so many times before, but it always _always_ allowed her to stitch herself back together. The Force would guide her, and she would revel in every moment it allowed her, no matter which path she were to follow. She would build her future using her own blood and bones as brick and mortar if she needed to, and as long as the Force was with her, she would smile into the void.

  



End file.
